Trump and Vance might have been spied on by Chinese hackers

The New York Times informed that Chinese hackers might have targeted the data of cellphones owned by Republican candidate Donald Trump and his VP, JD Vance.

According to The New York Times, investigators are trying to uncover what data did the Beijing operatives managed to obtain or observe from the Republican ticket.

This could have included text messages, phone calls, how often and for how long they communicated with certain people. This information could be more valuable if it could be observed on real time.

However, intelligence sources affirm that this is just the latest move in a large and ongoing strategy from Chinese-backed hackers into US telecommunications.

Just a few weeks earlier The Washington Post informed that the White House has formed an emergency team to deal with the growing threat of Chinese espionage.

The measure was adopted after a series of cyberattacks aimed at US telecommunications companies that have been linked to China.

According to The Washington Post, between 10 and 12 corporations have been hit by Chinese hackers, the most important ones being Verizon, AT&T, and Lumen.

The US government believes that the goal of these cyberattacks has been information gathering, particularly this close to the US election.

CBS News writes these Chinese hackers broke into communication platforms used by US intelligence officials to conduct wiretaps.

According to Axios, Chinese hackers were able to obtain highly sensitive intelligence and law enforcement data.

The lack of a clear entry point and a time frame to know how long these cyberattacks have been going make it difficult to properly deal with these hackers.

CBS News spoke with an anonymous US intelligence official that the depth and damage caused by the cyberattacks are difficult to grasp, but everything hints to an online group known as Salt Typhoon.

Axios explains that Salt Typhoon is just one out of many advanced persistent threats that are suspected to be backed by Beijing.

“The recently reported hack of U.S. telecommunications companies' wiretapping systems should serve as a major wake-up call to the government”, Democratic Senator for Oregon Ron Wyden warned in a letter, as cited by CBS News.

It remains to be seen how Washington will react now as tension with Beijing continues to grow.

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